She would have lived on like this if her adoptive parents (who knew nothing about her true form), her relatives, friends' parents from both sides of the world, China, and America, hadn't started the questioning. Do you have someone special, her best friend Sherry's mother asked her at her friend’s wedding. When she said no, the mother patted her arm and took her hand, Aww, don't worry, you'll find that someone special for you too. Then the questions and demands from her family accelerated, Why don't you find yourself a nice young man? When are you going to get married? When are we going to have grandchildren? Why won't you accept his invitation? What's wrong with you? Why are you so stubborn? At your age, I'd been married and had you already!

Bai-Bai loved her parents. She was supposed to be a good and obedient adopted child (and not just because she wanted to become immortal), so she accepted to date and marry a nice proper man the parents vetted and approved, who had a handsomely paid job and bonuses worth a lifetime of her parents’ salaries at an investment bank. She moved to Wellesley, a wealthy town in Massachusetts and lived in a large house with gray siding, large expanse of glass, black trimming, a newly built Modern Farmhouse home style she’d seen plastered all over the cover pages of Dwell and Architectural Digest. The type of homes that when people drive by, they’d admire the perfect apple green front and backyard where she grew petunias and sunflowers and had a little pond for herself.

After the wedding, the nice young man, John Wong, revealed his true self, starting at first, being annoyed when she didn't cook the rice the way his mother did, or complained that the chicken thighs were too dry, or the tilapia fillet had bones in it he wanted her to remove before serving him. Cooking wasn't a skill she’d learned or found useful as a snake form.

She accepted her failure to please her husband, especially when her parents had new questions, new demands, When will you have kids? It's about time, have your kids while you're still young, aren't you going to have kids soon, it's time now, why are you so disrespectful, why are you punishing us, all our friends have their second and third grandkids, do you want us to lose face etc. When he didn't get the promotion he thought he deserved, he became moodier and angrier as if it were her fault. He screamed profanities at the slightest displeasure, criticized her weight gain, said she wasn't as pretty anymore, felt cheated like he had made a bad deal.

He slapped her when she told him to calm down. You should know your place, he said.

She could barely shut her hissing down, her fangs were dying to come out, but by then, the eggs she had laid and hidden under their bed were about to hatch. She stayed in the marriage for the sake of her future little ones, but the anger she kept in her belly was starting to bubble up. Her parents admonished her, Are you crazy, you have responsibilities now, he's a good provider, think of your babies, what are you thinking, what would people think if you divorce him, no, out of the question, absolutely not!

Once the babies hatched, and took up their human forms, she was ready for him. He came home as usual, dropped his briefcase by the door, took off his shoes, and gave her a cursory glance. She served him a plate of steaming jasmine rice and cold chicken drumsticks in sesame oil and ginger paste. He threw the drumstick at her, furious it was cold and with bone! She freed her fangs: they rose inside her widening jaws, her clothes tore, her skin peeled off, and she unfurled herself into her true self, shimmering and glorious as he watched in horror. She opened her jaws, forked her tongue out, and glided toward him on the cool marble floor.